Cheap Seats
Fore no more and $76,000 ago
Al Dickens is a bit teed off. The real estate developer sued the city-owned Los Robles Greens in Thousand Oaks, Calif., claiming an errant golf ball struck him in the head and knocked him out. Dickens recently finished construction on an office building adjacent to the course’s driving range and says runaway balls could scare away or harm potential tenants.
So Dickens posted $76,000 bond to secure a preliminary injunction requiring the driving range to close until the city can guarantee no balls rain down on Dickens’ property.
For his next act, Dickens plans to move in next to LAX, then complain about the noise.
Really bull market
Forgive promoter Don King if he’s keeping one eye on the stock ticker and the other on Mike Tyson. It turns out he has a big stake in both.
Records show King has become a major stockholder in the MGM Grand hotel-casino, thanks to a six-fight deal he signed with the Las Vegas resort last year for Tyson’s services. But while Tyson risks his comeback career in a March 16 fight against WBC heavyweight champion Frank Bruno at the MGM Grand Hotel, King has no risk in an almost unbelievable stock deal with the hotel.
The MGM Grand gave King a $15 million, no-interest loan to buy 618,557 shares of the company’s stock. King risked no money of his own; even better, the MGM guarantees the stock will be worth at least $30 million when the deal expires in ‘97.
In what appears to be a first, King refused comment on the matter. Not surprisingly, rival promoter Bob Arum found time to talk. “King is one of the greatest salesmen of our time, and he showed it this time,” Arum said. “It’s the worst deal for a casino in history, is how it was described to me.”
His first career turnover
Scottie Pippen won’t forget his first day in Chicago: “I put my suitcase down, looked up at the Sears Tower, and said, ‘Chicago, here I am and I’m gonna conquer you.’ Then I looked down and my suitcase was gone.”
Will the Yanks draft speed?
Late Show host David Letterman seldom strays from midseason form. According to Letterman, “The Yankees in spring training are experimenting now to see what kind of alcohol and drugs they’ll use during the regular season.”
Name game
Baseball owners junked their “Welcome to the Show” advertising campaign last week, replacing it with “What A Game.” Lowe & Partners-SMS, baseball’s newly chosen New York ad agency that used a Janis Joplin song to sell Mercedes-Benzes and a bare-chested Lucky Vanous to sell Diet Cokes, will debut its advertising with newspaper ads on March 29.
It’ll be “What Game?” if players and owners don’t sign a collective bargaining agreement.
The last word …
“Stanley was upset because they told him he couldn’t get in the Clipper Club for snacks after the game.”
- Clippers forward Brian Williams, after chunky teammate Stanley Roberts was ejected from recent game
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo